Injured Soldier and his Pregnant Wife Receive a New Home and Car

Saturday, April 7, 2007
By Matt Connor - For the Express

WINGATE — There are few people who needed a bit of heavenly intervention more than Marine Cpl. David Emery and his wife Leslie Shivery.

Natives of Bellefonte, the couple have been in a state of pain and anxiety for the last eight weeks, ever since Emery's legs and left arm were shattered and his internal organs seriously damaged in a suicide bomb attack in Al Anbar province in Iraq.

At the same time, Shivery was preparing to give birth to a baby girl, to be named Carlee Ann, who is scheduled to arrive in about a month.

It's not difficult to imagine the anguish Emery must have been going through at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. where he is currently recovering. How would he and Leslie manage to get by, with one of them critically injured and a baby on the way?

Those are just the kinds of questions Kayti Gallagher posed to Bea Clapp, the creator of a TV show currently in production called "An American Angel."

Gallagher is a longtime friend of Shivery and a military wife with a husband in Iraq. The two became friends while students at Bellefonte Area High School.

Once she heard about the concept of the Clapp's program — which is to make a miracle happen for a citizen in desperate need — Kayti wrote to Bea and her daughter, Nici, about Shivery and Emery.

And on Friday afternoon, a Clapp-facilitated miracle took place when Shivery was presented with access to an account at Omega Bank, a new 2007 Toyota Corolla and a three-bedroom home near Wingate.

Asked how she thought Emery would react when he heard the news, Shivery said tearfully, "He was the type of person who, before he came home, would say, ‘We've gotta have this much for this and this much for that.' I just know that when he was lying there in the hospital he was thinking, ‘How am I going to support my family now?' So he's really going to love it."

Shivery was lured out to the Wingate area on the ruse of accepting an award on Emery's behalf. But in reality, her family, friends, and "An American Angel" producers had been planning for several weeks to surprise her with the house, car and bank account on that day.

After Bea Clapp was contacted by Gallagher and read about Emery in the local newspapers, said David Sterling, one of the "An American Angel producers, "what happened from there was a whirlwind of contacting not only local people here but people from all over the country and explaining to them the ‘An American Angel' idea.

"The idea," he continued, "is that there are people you walk by every day that are angels, that actually want to help or give something to somebody in need who they don't even know — firefighters, EMTs, doctors, nurses and certainly our military in all branches — and we consider them American Angels."

The focus of the show, Sterling said, is not only on those in need, but on "people in communities all across the country who help those people in need. So we chose to do the first pilot of this television series in Bellefonte. We've got significant contacts at the networks and they're just basically waiting to see if this idea could get pulled off. And it was."

The bulk of the cost of the new car, Sterling said, came from "an angel in Florida… And an angel in Washington State came forward with a significant amount of the budget to make the house happen."

While all of this organizing was going on, Shivery said, Emery continued to improve at the hospital.

"He's actually doing a lot better than before," Shivery said. "His white blood count is still a little high, it's in the 30,000s. Actually last night before I left, I walked in the room and he was just smiling, and I'm like, ‘You're in a good mood.' He was all smiles and he was touching me and I told him I was coming home to get an award for him and that I'd have to go home for a little bit. Then he started to cry a little bit. A little tear went down, and I told him, ‘Don't worry. I'll be back on Sunday. I'll be back.'"

"She's a sweetheart," Gallagher said of her friend Shivery. "She has a huge heart. I know she would have done it for me if the roles were reversed. I love her to death. She's going through a hard time right now. Her husband was getting out of the military in June and they had nowhere to live. They have a baby on the way — she's eight month's pregnant — but she's a sweet girl and she's very strong."

With temperatures near freezing, dozens of members of the media, neighbors, friends and family members lined up on the street outside Shivery's new home on Friday to watch her receive her "An American Angel" bestowal.

A contingent of full-dress United States Marines escorted her to a presentation of eight red-and-blue-uniformed members of the Marine Corps League Nittany Leathernecks Detachment, where Bea Clapp told her, "We guess you're probably wondering what you're doing there."

Clapp then explained that "we were with ‘An American Angel,' and sometimes good people hit tough times and need an angel on their side, and there are a lot of people in this community with the hearts of angels, and that we had a few things for her."

Many of those people with "hearts of angels" were present among the well-wishers gathered at Shivery's new home Friday.

Rachel Rogers, a Bellefonte Area High School graduate, met Shivery in sixth grade and became "really good friends" with her long before she realized — surprise! — that Shivery was her cousin.

"I went home and went through the family tree and it's like, yeah, she's related to me. It's so neat," she said. "Leslie's been hanging in there. She's been through a lot but she's a pretty tough cookie. She's taking it very well."

Joseph Miller, a member of the Army working with Penn State ROTC, is old friend of Emery. He showed up in full fatigues and was clearly moved by the day's events.

"David was one of the few pitchers in junior league that I never got a hit off of," Miller said wistfully of Emery. "He was very talented and I respect him very much."

Miller has served in Iraq himself.

"I've had a few close experiences myself… I just hate to hear about people getting hurt, even when it's someone I don't know,” he said.

"But it really hurts when it's someone I do know and had been in contact with, like David,” Miller continued. “My heart really sinks, but people like him are true heroes, and it keeps me driving on as a soldier. He's got a lot to look forward to. He's got a beautiful wife with a baby on the way and now a beautiful home."

After she was given the keys to that home, complete with a wheelchair ramp for Emery, Shivery gave out tear-stained hugs to her myriad of well-wishers and answered questions from the media.

Asked how her family and friends had managed to keep the house giveaway secret from her, especially since the story had been widely covered in the press, Shivery laughs and says she's been too busy lately to read the newspapers.

"I'm in David's room from eight o'clock in the morning until six o'clock," she said. "From six to eight we have to leave, we usually go over to the Navy lodge to get a bite to eat and then we're back there from eight to 11."

Clapp said this was not likely to be her last visit to the Wingate area.

"We're going to be back," she said. "We're going to follow this story because there are obviously going to be specific needs that David is going to need and we're going to be back to meet those."

She added that "It's nice to know you've done the right thing, and this is going to send an incredible message of hope to David, which is exactly what we want."

"Miracles still happen every day," she said.